


Ride for the Roses

by Her_Madjesty



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wyvern Racing, F/M, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28354017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Her_Madjesty/pseuds/Her_Madjesty
Summary: You learn early on in the racing business that no matter how suited certain breeds may be to life on the track, Fodlan’s finest have their preferences.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	Ride for the Roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radicaldar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radicaldar/gifts).



> _awkwardly steps back into the Fire Emblem fandom after writing nearly 80k of Shakespeare fic._
> 
> Sup?
> 
> Happy holidays, radicaldar! I hope this gift finds you well. We've got a fun mash-up here of wyverns, Claudeleth, and the Kentucky Derby - not quite your request from the Chlores tag, but I hope it's something you'll enjoy.

You learn early on in the racing business that no matter how suited certain breeds may be to life on the track, Fodlan’s finest have their preferences.

Claude’s own experience in Almyra introduced him to some of the quirks breeders integrated into their stock – the wyverns of the north, for example, had horns far too impractical to make their beasts useful on the track, but the creatures were prized, anyway. In Fodlan, breeding and racing practices are much the same, even in his own stables.

He walks, now, among the collection brought out for the first races of the spring. The air is still damp with the threat of rain, and the beasts can feel it – they pace in their stalls as he walks past, some chewing at their bridles while others buckle down and huff in disgust.

Down the lane, a bright mane of ginger hair gives away one of the breeders from Adrestia. Claude slows his walk as Ferdinand coos at his own mount, the pinnacle of the south’s breeding. He Who Crests Mountains – Crestmount, in the polls – is as lithe as wyverns come, with his horns shone down to numbs and his spinal protrusions all but non-existent. His wings are longer than those of the more northern wyverns, but the long leather stretches that connect his fingers are thinner, too. Claude knows that in a straight match, Crestmount is faster than his peers, but he is weaker, too.

Ferdinand offers Claude a bright smile as he passes, saying hello while Crestmount snuffs at his hair. Claude gives him a wave and lingers for a few minutes at Crestmount’s stall, commenting on the wyvern’s prospects for the reason as well as on the dismal weather.

Further down, a low argument breaks out between a breeder and his jockey. Both men turn in time to see Felix Fraldarius snap at the prince of Faerghus, who has his hands up in clear surrender. Behind the shorter man’s head, The North’s Last Stand, with her incredible beard and fur tuffs in her ears – lets out a low and irritated bellow.

Despite the clear animosity of the argument, Claude can’t help but smile. Enough rumors indicate that North follows her rider in temperament; the both of them short tempered and more than willing to get in a fight. That’s the benefit, after all, of Northern wyverns – what they lack in speed, they make up for in might. Even now, at his distance, Claude can see the flash of North’s teeth as she snarls at her breeder.

Back down the lane, there comes a bright laugh, welcome in the face of the north’s brutality. Claude, recognizing it, turns from Ferdinand with a broad grin and tucks his hands behind his head. There, by the pens he’s selected for his own jockies, he can make out two familiar heads and one – less so, but no less welcomed in his sight.

“Hilda! Ignatz!” he calls, speeding up to join his colleagues. “I thought you’d still be at breakfast.”

His jockey, Ignatz, pushes up his glasses and smiles, while Hilda, one of his best managers, only rolls her eyes.

“You’re the one who always says you want us up and early, Leader Man,” she says, reaching up to cover a delicate yawn. “And anyway, Ignatz was pining for Cerva again.”

“I – I wouldn’t call it pining,” Ignatz insists. Cerva’s head appears from over her pen’s door, and he flushes as she nuzzles into his neck.

Claude grins at the both of them, then reaches out to let Cerva catch his scent. He raised her from a wyrmling; she should know him well enough, but Goddess knows she’s taken to Ignatz better than she ever took to him.

“You’re going to land us an opener’s spot, aren’t you, girl?” Claude coos.

Cerva lets out a long puff of hot hair that gets mostly lost in Igntaz’s hair, but the meaning of it isn’t lost on Claude. He takes a respectful half-step back and turns to Hilda, better to let rider and beast settle in against one another.

“How are things looking out there?” he asks.

Hilda sucks in air through her teeth, then glances down the stables at the other riders and their mounts. “We’re not in dead last, based on the polls,” she says, pulling a paper and quill out of the bag she carries with her at all times. “That’s Northie, of course, just given her size. But I won’t say that we’re looking as competitive as we usually do.”

“We’re not?” Claude frowns and moves to snatch the pad of paper from her. Hilda reels backwards, holding it behind her back before sticking her quill in Claude’s face.

“Hey! Don’t get all grabby on me,” she sniffs. “There’s someone new on the field; some kind of prodigy or heritage rider, something like that. She’s dragging all the attention away from field standards like our Cerva.”

Claude glances back up and down the stables. It’s not as though he’s familiar with all of the wyverns in their current stock, but everyone here looks at least a little familiar.

“Where is she, then?” he demands, motioning to the holding pens around them.

“Not in yet,” Hilda admits, “but she sent her application ahead with a messenger, and Grandmaster Rhea approved it basically out of the gate. It’s causing a real stir.”

Someone clears his throat – and it’s Ignatz, looking between the two of them. “I’m not sure what betting odds really have to do with our chances, honestly.”

Claude – doesn’t soften, but he does force himself to take a steadying breath. By the time he looks at Ignatz properly, he’s got his game face back on.

“It’s got nothing to do with your chances,” he admits, reaching down to clap the shorter man on the shoulder. “It’s more a matter of reputation. The better we look, the more sponsors we’re going to get.”

“And the more sponsors we get,” Hilda adds, “the better Cerva’s kit and bedding get to be!”

Ignatz lightens at that – and really, it’s almost endearing, how much he loves his wyvern. Claude feels his expression starting to slip into something genuine and lets it linger, just for a moment.

He wanders off shortly after, letting his two best to gab while Cerva huffs up a storm in her pen. The air in the early morning is a bit cool for his liking, but that’s no one’s fault – not his and not Fodlan’s, either.

Despite himself – and despite the smiles he manages to share with the grooms and managers moving in and out of the stables – he finds himself fingering the white scale ring he wears on his pinkie. It’s almost too small to notice, especially compared to the other jewelry he’s taken to wearing over the years. But it’s worn and on the older side – a special piece made just for him.

(Back in Almyra, there’s a wyvern growing old in her paddock who wails for him, now and again. Claude thinks on her and smiles around the pang in his heart.)

He wanders the stock yard and down by the track until the better part of the morning has burnt away. In practice, he can say he’s holding a meet and greet, interacting with other managers and getting a feel for the crowd that’s started to draw into the stadium.

In reality, he’s keeping an eye out for a face he doesn’t recognize.

Admittedly, it’s not an easy task. Beyond the big hats and the gaudy costumes some of the long-haul racers wear, it’s hard to see much of anything, let alone a wyvern rider who doesn’t want her face known.

By the time noon rolls around and the pre-shows have begun to draw in audience attention, he still hasn’t been able to pick her out of the crowd.

More than a little disgruntled, Claude makes his way to the rider’s mess.

The team he helms – the Alliance Contingent – is not guaranteed a spot in this year’s derby, but that does not mean that their presence is not anticipated. Beyond Ignatz, he has two other riders in the mix: Leonie Pinelli, the daughter of one of his breeders, and Lorenz, the son of one of the Alliance’s oldest investors. While it’s more likely than not that Leonie will make her way into the derby, he has hopes for Ignatz, who already he can see making nice with the jockies from the other nations. Leonie, comparatively, is nowhere to be seen, likely taking lunch in the stables next to her beloved Fury’s Flight, whereas Lorenz has taken up with Ferdinand somewhere towards the center of the room.

Despite the overall jovial mood in the mess, there is something...off about the goings on. Claude procures a tray of something reasonable edible for himself and makes his way slowly through the crowd, listening with an open hear to garner any of the circulating gossip.

“I heard he hasn’t been in racing for at least thirty years,” someone to his left is saying. “But I saw him earlier, and he doesn’t look a day over forty!”

“I didn’t know he had a daughter,” whispers another.

“Wasn’t he involved in that accident at Garreg Mach not too long ago?”

“That was decades ago; where have you been?”

Claude doesn’t know it, but the lines in his forehead grow deeper as the rumor mills bustles. He sits down next to Hilda and a troop of well-dressed women not with a huff but with enough of a cloud hanging over him that Hilda begins to coo almost immediately.

“Look at you, Leader Man,” she says, brushing their elbows together. “I don’t think I’ve seen you look so glum – ever, actually. You’ve met the new rider, I take it?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t,” Claude grouses before digging into his pheasant. “But the rumors I’m hearing make whoever it is seem like some kind of wunderkind.”

“Well, they’re not far off,” Hilda admits.

Claude looks up from his meal. Her gaze is...distant. Not worryingly so, but still concerning, considering how distractable she is on a good day.

“...you’ve met them,” Claude accuses, after a beat has passed.

Hilda snaps back to the present and gifts him with the smarmiest of grins. “Not exactly,” she admits, reaching over with her fork to spear some asparagus off of his plate. “I’ve met her mount, though – and you’ll never guess what she’s called.”

“What?” Claude ask, leaning forward.

Under normal circumstances, he knows this would be a mistake – Hilda loves nothing more than a captivate audience. But his foul mood seems to have done him at least one favor. While none of Hilda’s audience seems ready to empty their pocketbooks for him, they are hanging on her every word.

“Sothis, Queen of Time,” Hilda says, once her pause has grown dramatic enough for her liking. “She’s got a beard like a Faerghus charger but wings like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’d accuse her of being some kind of genetic crossbreed, but they’ve got her pedigree on display – and it’s hard to beat.”

“Is she in the stables now?”

Hilda shakes her head, looking almost sad for it. “Her pedigree is, but she isn’t. Last I checked, the riders’ troop just got off the road an hour ago. With the races so close, I don’t think she’ll be in her stall until after they’re over.”

Claude brings his hand to his forehead and pinches his brow. Across the table, one of the ladies Hilda’s gathered into her entourage clears her throat, commanding both his and Hilda’s attention.

“I know a little more, if that helps,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Hilda and Claude glance at one another. It’s Hilda, in turn, who leans forward, leaving Claude to sit back and look as unintimidating as possible.

“You’re Margrave Edmund’s daughter, aren’t you?” asks Hilda, her voice sweet as honey. “What’ve you heard, sugar face?”

Color rises into the young woman’s cheeks almost immediately, and she looks down at the table. Her next words are almost impossible to hear – every person at the table has to lean in to even try.

“The rider – her father rode the Bladebreaker when he was younger,” she all but whispers.

Claude’s eyes go wide. “No.”

The woman shakes her head, eyes still fixed on the floor.

“Jeralt?” It takes all of his professionalism not to drop his head on the table then and there. “Jeralt Eisner has a rider in the race?”

The young woman seems to shrink back into herself, overwhelmed but the sudden and intense attention.

Claude barely sees Hilda reach out in her direction, too distracted by the sudden sense of doom rising in his chest.

He realizes his mistake a minute before it can fester. While Hilda comforts the stranger as best she can, he summons up his best, golden smile and beams at the gathered crowd. “Well then,” he says with a confidence he doesn’t have, “we’d better do out best to give him a show.”

A cheer goes up from a few of the more optimistic ladies, and he sharpens his grin, just for them. Pheasant still on his plate, Claude bids the slowly-easing crowd adieu, ignoring the subtle tap on his hand from the ever-aware Hilda.

It’s an important message, in its own way – the code they’ve made for themselves over years of this work. Two taps – two bidders ready to commit. A long pause, then three taps in rapid succession – three more interested, depending on the outcome of the race.

Claude commits the women’s faces to memory before heading out to the pitch, craning his neck for some sign of the blonde shock of hair he knows gives away the man who road the Bladebreaker.

The crowds reveal nothing but colorful hats and waves upon waves of coin disappearing from his already-thinning pockets.

*

By the time the warning bell rings down in the pitch, Claude still has not seen hide nor hair of the man who rode the Bladebreaker. It would be frustrating for any other manager – and he can’t lie, he’s less than pleased that someone in this industry seems to be a little cannier than even him.

But he can be graceful when the need calls for it. So while his riders line up down in the pitch, he makes his way to the manager box, where the bulk of his peers already sit.

The Emperor of Adrestria sits on the far left, a pristine cup of tea held in hand. She greets him with a nod and the smallest of smiles, all while her aid lingers at her back, his dark eyes fixed on a ginger head below. Not far away – hovering, one might go so far as to say – stands the King of Faerghus. In the summer chill, his dark blue cloak seems to serve him well. His greeting is far friendlier than the emperor’s, as he reaches out to take Claude’s hand in his.

And Claude knows, just as everyone knows, that it’s a miracle Dimitri’s here at all. After the loss of his eye and the bulk of his kingdom not five years ago, it was more than the races the professionals were concerned about. After a rocky few years, though, the kingdom found its feet and made its way back into the derbies as a power to contend with.

Besides the three of them, there are representatives from some of the smaller nearby countries. Duskar, to Claude’s surprise, has sent a single rider – a man who towers over even the most well-muscled of the jockies on the field. His wyvern is no less impressive in size, but Claude’s at a loss for stats regarding how well the creature should be able to fly. So too is there are rider from Brigid and another from Dagda, both of them settling into the pitch without too much fuss.

And then –

“There!” It is Dimitri, with some of the boyish excitement that first endeared Claude to him as a child, who’s able to spot the Eisner brood first. Claude leans over the managers’ railing with him and notes with no little interest that both Edelgard and her retainer do the same.

Down below, towards the inner gate of the pitch though not quite against it, is a shock of blue hair the likes Claude has never seen. At her side is a man who can only be Jeralt Eisner, a wyvern’s reins held in his hand.

And the wyvern herself –

“Goddess bless,” Claude whispers beneath his breath.

The wyvern is a beauty. Her beard is the same as Hilda said; effectively Faergan, but braided and held back by the creature’s bridal. There are nearly no horns to speak of, much like the rest of the cultivated mounts, but her wings –

“How in the world did she find such a creature?” Edelgard’s retainer, Hubert, muses. “The wings alone look as though they’re Almyran, while the rest –”

“I read through her pedigree,” replies Dimitri – and it’s a testament to the strangeness of the situation that the two are even speaking to one another. “One of her great grandmothers was Almyran, but it’s claimed that her father was the Bladebreaker, through and through.”

Edelgard, though still leaning forward, manages an approximation of a casual hum. Claude glances over and catches a glint of interest in those lavendar eyes.

“Sothis,” she says, letting the name roll over her tongue. “Queen of Time. An interesting candidate to see in this line up, to be sure.” She glances at her retainer. “Is she affiliated with a particular ranch?”

Both Claude and Dimitri stiffen.

Across the room, Hubert smiles. “To the best of my knowledge, she is not, my lady,” he says with a short bow at the waist. “It is a shame for such talent to work independently. Imagine what she could do with the proper...connections.”

The air in the managers’ booth goes tight. Despite their earlier, easier comradery, all three of the lords exchange suspicious glances.

Down below, the second warning bell rings.

Claude waves a hand and summons one of the staff to his side, scribbling down a message to Hilda before the race can start in earnest.

He’s only just managed to pass the thing off before the starting cannon shot rings through the air. He turns, eyes wide –

And they’re off.

*

He has ridden in a number of these races himself, though more when he was younger. Now, as a manager, it is a rare day that sees him take to wyvern-back.

But Claude knows this track well. It twists up through the mountains, curls in and out of crevices that you have to be quick to avoid.

It is not the easiest path, but neither is it the hardest.

Even so, there’s only so many ways you can get from the start to the finish – and the fastest time belongs to an Almyran steed; one ridden, Claude knows, by the man who taught him how to fly.

The newest Eisner on the scene does not beat that record.

But she comes damn close.

The half-mad, midnight blue mystery comes sailing around the run’s final curve a mere twenty minutes after the race begins. Already, though, rumors have been flying through the audience – a beast that moves as quickly as that cannot, they insist, be natural; cannot, they insist, fairly compete within the race.

But Claude watches rider and wyvern alike in those final moments of the race. In the distance, there is Leonie, her own rusty wyvern struggling to keep up in Eisner’s wake. But there – the rider bends with the wind, leaning close to her wyvern’s neck. There, the tips of the wyvern’s wings angle just so, taking her close to the ground. There, the neck extends, just a touch, to carrying her across the finish line half a second faster.

The crowd is almost too shocked to applaud. But once Sothis, Queen of Time comes to a stop, her mass landing almost delicately on the winner’s perch that was not minutes before set up, the audience bursts into applause.

The managers’ box, however, remains silent. Idly, Claude can feel Dimitri looking at him – can feel Edelgard looking at Dimitri over his shoulder.

There is a knock on the box door.

And abruptly, three grown adults – and not a few of the foreign representatives – devolve into children. Edelgard is out of her seat in an instant, but Dimitri has height on her; his long legs carry him forward faster than either Claude or Edelgard can match. It is he, in turn, who opens the door –

But it is not one of his men who stands outside of it.

Instead – to Claude’s delight – it is Hilda, sweating but grinning a shark’s grin. Behind her, he can hear shouts from what he assumes to be both Kingdom and Empire representatives, both of them left far in the dust.

“Mr. Leader Man,” Hilda chirps, offering him a lazy salute. “Jeralt Eisner’s asked you to join his rider down in the winner’s circle.”

Claude lifts his chin and spares an almost-sympathetic glance over at his fellow managers. Hubert, bless him, is the only one expressing any true emotion. The aide seethes while his Emperor pulls on a placid mask and while Dimitri just looks...confused.

“Thank you, Lady Goneril,” Claude says, weaving in and out of the crowd to come and join his retainer. With a pep in his step, he heads out into the hall, letting the door to the manager’s box slip closed behind him.

Hilda links their arms together as they walk, blissfully ignoring the pounding feet of one Caspar von Bergliez and one Sylvain Gautier as they book it down the hall.

“Did you really get me in with the Bladebreaker’s rider that quickly?” Claude murmurs after both men have sprinted past.

Hilda smiles at him, as serene as ever. “Of course I didn’t, silly,” she says, guiding him around a corner. “But if we can get you down to the winner’s circle before Leonie gets in, I imagine you’ll have – oh, a minute or so? – to see what this new girl’s all about.”

Claude sighs, a happy thing. “Where have you been all my life, Hilda?”

As they step out into the open air of the stadium, Hilda none-too-gently slugs him in the arm. “I’ve always been here, duh,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Holst just spent four years trying to convince me to pick up an ax and apply myself. If he’d known how good we could be on the field, I would’ve been here much sooner.”

Security lets them passed the artificial barriers and towards the winner’s circle without so much as a sideways glance. As they come closer, Claude can feel even his good humor giving way to some kind of...anxious vibration somewhere beneath his skin.

When he doesn’t reply to her joke, Hilda turns away from him with a dramatic sigh. “Huh. All this and not even a thank you. And to think, I could have been wooing sweet Marianne onto our books right now.”

“Ah, who?”

He means it in good heart, really, he does – but Claude’s all but lost for the woman in the winner’s circle.

She’s still alone for the moment, though how long that’ll last depends entirely on Leonie. As he and Hilda come to a stop, she shakes her hair out of her helmet and gives Sothis a rub behind the stubs of her antlers.

And Claude –

Stares.

Breathes.

Smiles.

“Congratulations, Ms. Eisner!” he calls from a safe distance. “Get her going a little faster there, and you’ll overtake Nader the Undefeated.”

He expects – something, some kind of response or facial tick. Bur the Eisner rider looks at him as placidly as the day is long, only inclining her head with her wyvern nudges her in the neck.

“Thank you,” she calls back, her voice...uncertain. “I’d be careful, though, if I were you – it’s only riders who are supposed to be out here right now.”

At his side, Hilda sputters – and Claude feels his own mental processes thrown for a loop. He untangles his arm from Hilda’s and takes another step forward, careful to travel with the wind to give Sothis his scent.

“I’m – sorry?” he says. “Ah, no, let me start over.” As he inches closer, he holds out his hand. “I am Claude von Riegan, of the Alliance Contingent. You’ve just beaten my best rider by a long shot.”

The Eisner rider stares at his hand like it’s a snake in the grass. Claude tries to find it in himself to be offended but can’t, not with that confused look on her face.

(And she doesn’t even seem to be happy to have won.)

Finally, she reaches out and squeezes back. Claude grits his teeth to keep from buckling under her grip, but it is a near and dear thing.

“Byleth,” she says, letting his hand drop like a stone. “And Sothis.”

Above her head, the midnight-blue wyvern huffs out a bored breath. Claude risks a glance up at her and nearly rears back for the uncanny intelligence in those dark eyes.

“A pleasure,” he says, once he catches his breath.

In comes Leonie, at last, settling into second place with no little loss of dignity. She secures Fury’s Flight to the second place platform and all but throws herself at the ground, raring, it seems, to confront the first place winner. She only slows a little when she sees Claude and Hilda already down on the pitch, but even that’s not enough to bring her up short.

Claude acts in the scant seconds he has left, pulling a card from the depths of his coat.

“Listen,” he says, moving in close and leaning into the Riegan charm. “If you get a moment to yourself after this, why don’t you give me a call? You’ve won me a fair bit of money today, and I would love to pay you back with a drink.”

It’s a bluff – and he’s not sure if she buys it. But Byleth takes his card between two of her fingers and stares at it with that same unrelenting expression.

Claude waits, but she does not reply. And then there’s Leonie, in her face and asking questions that seem to be fifty percent about Sothis and fifty percent about Byleth’s father.

Claude takes that as his cue. Reaching out for Hilda, he moves from the pitch, watching in the distance as additional spots of color start to appear on the horizon.

“So,” he says only once they’re out of earshot. “That was strange.”

Hilda, unusually silent at his side, takes a moment before she responds. The two of them smile at the king and Emperor as they approach from the stands, their own aids talking a mile per minute.

Only once they’re safe beneath the downy wings of the stadium does Hilda clear her throat.

“That was more than weird, Claude,” she says – the first time she’s used his proper name the entire day. “I’m not sure what’s going on there, but I – something’s wrong.” She shivers – and while he could blame it on the cold of the day, there’s a look in her eye that won’t let him.

Claude glances back over his shoulder towards the winner’s circle. There, he can see Leonie’s orange head bouncing, and that midnight blue stepping back from the approaching crowd.

“She’s a mystery, all right,” he says, his voice a distant thing even to his own ears. “I’m looking forward to finding out more.”


End file.
